A few days ago I wrote about a 1984 Ford Falcon XE S Pack Sedan, and today I’m bringing you the story of its sibling, the XE Falcon S Pack Station Wagon. This car brings back some fond memories for me, as I had an almost identical vehicle as a company car for 3 years. You will find this Falcon listed for sale here on eBay. The car is located in Argenton, New South Wales, and is being offered with a clear title. At the time of writing, bidding had reached $1,525, but the reserve hasn’t been met.
The first thing that I will say about this Falcon compared to the last one that we featured is that this one is in significantly better overall condition. The only obvious rust in the car is a small amount appearing under the factory fitted chrome roof rack. This is not uncommon, and it is an easy fix if caught early. There is also a small dent on the front edge of the hood, and that same area has also suffered from stone chips. This is probably the single most common paint defect in the XE Falcon, as that front edge of the hood is just at the right height to get peppered by stones from preceding vehicles. Otherwise, the body and paint are in really nice condition for a car of this age.
Before the current owner purchased the car, the original, elderly owner had bought it and used it as his daily driver until parking it in a barn for around 15 years. Looking at the condition of the interior of the car, it looks like a car that had been well cared for. Unlike the car that I featured the other day, the interior of this one is virtually faultless and completely original. The seller says that there is a crack in the console, but it is nice to see that the original factory digital clock and radio/cassette player are still present in the dash. One interesting minor defect is the warping of the grille on the top of the dash. Why that grille is even present is one of life’s great mysteries, because it serves no function. Even the lowest spec XE Falcon had its radio speakers set down in the bottom corners of the dash, so all that grille ever did was gather dust….and warp. One aspect of the Falcon that was often criticized was the fact that the park brake lever was located under the dash to the left of the driver, rather than between the seats. This location was a necessity, as the Falcon could be specified with a bench seat, and Ford took the decision to utilize a universal placement of this item on cost grounds.
Unlike the previous example, the seat upholstery on this Falcon is in extremely good condition. There were a number of choices of upholstery material in Falcons of this era. It was still possible to specify full vinyl upholstery, but the vast majority of Falcons were ordered with cloth trim. The basic material was a wool-knit look. The S Pack was fitted with this distinctive striped material as standard. Top of the range vehicles such as the Fairmont Ghia was fitted with plush velour upholstery. While the seats may appear to be quite flat, they were exceptionally comfortable and supportive if the car was driven long distances.
By today’s standards, the Falcon of this era is quite an agricultural machine. When the XE model was introduced in 1982, it was still possible to order a car fitted with either a 302ci or 351ci V8. Ford took the decision to phase these engines out, and to address concerns regarding power requirements for towing purposes, they developed an EFI option for the 250ci (4.1l) straight six engine. This resulted in noticeable increases in both power and torque, but these didn’t reach the figures that the 351 produced. This engine is the EFI version, and it appears to be suffering from one of the engines most common maladies, a leaking valve cover gasket. This does nothing more than deposit oil on the engine, but fixing it is a slightly complicated process as it requires the removal of part of the fuel injection system. This car is said to run well, and it is fitted with air conditioning (not working) and power steering. That alone is a blessing, as the manual steering on the Falcon could be heavy at low speeds. Power is then fed via a 3-speed automatic transmission to a leaf-sprung rear end. Pretty primitive by today’s standards, but very effective if you needed to carry heavy loads.
As I remarked when I wrote about the last XE Falcon, in spite of the fact that these cars sold in high numbers, finding good examples today can be quite difficult. This one is a rare car, as it is a stock and complete example of the XE S Pack. It has a few faults, but these are faults that will not be particularly difficult to rectify. For Australian readers, the most desirable of the XE Falcons would be one fitted with a V8 engine, as these were rare when new. The next best option is the EFI version. I don’t know what the reserve is on this car, but it will be interesting to see whether it achieves more than the $5,000 asking price of the last example that we featured. In my mind, it definitely should.
Wow, if you squint at this, it looks like the Fox-platform “baby LTD” wagon my parents had in the ’80s to haul me and my cruft back and forth to college.
exactly what I’m lookin 4 Bill (’83-86, the Marquis as well).
Yikes, I think it needs to be harder to find…
These were developed from the European Granada, Ford Australia simply took the design and increased the dimensions all round.
The number of parts shared with the Euro Granada is zero. But the previous XD model did share it’s headlights with the Granada. Every body panel and all the glass is different, if you look, you can see how the Falcon has a much lower base to the side glazing. The floorpan platform and suspension are pretty much the same as the previous to XD/XE models XA/XB/XC, hence the model code staying so similar. The wagons and utes took the longer wheelbase of the Fairmont/LTD versions, you can see this in the rear door shutline placement ahead of the rear wheelarch. These are larger cars than the Euro Granadas.
Perhaps you are confusing the enlargement of a European donor with the competitor GMHolden Commodore which shared many body parts with GM Opel’s Rekord/Commodore/Omega?
Those European Granadas are just about wagon perfection.
I like it,but would cost a lot to ship it
& get it registered here in the Eastern US.
It cost about 2000 to ship a car from England (with all the paperwork) when I did it a couple years ago.
But it’s in Australia – NOT England.
About 2500 to ship it to the Western Coast.
This wouldn’t be fun and possibly scary leaving the bar and forgetting the wheel is on the wrong side …
The ford Fairmont was close is size, but slightly smaller, it too was available with a V8. It and the Fox body Mustang shared many suspension parts. Nobody remembers these cars, except for a few hot rodders, because nobody cared.
Steve R
@SteveR – so true! The Fairmont was a massively under-appreciated car. I owned several used ones between 1984 and the mid-90s. I grew to love them all, especially the wagons. I can’t remember the last time I saw one in the wild.
Something appealing about it idk…just me I guess.
love to be seen here in florida driving somethinglike this lol
Ya it looks like a fox body got screwed by a Fairmont and this was the results.
Umm…. a Fairmont IS a fox-body.
Not in Australia/New Zealand.The XE Falcon range consisted of nine models marketed as follows:
Falcon utility
Falcon van
Falcon GL ute
Falcon GL van
Falcon GL sedan
Falcon GL wagon
Fairmont sedan
Fairmont wagon
Fairmont Ghia sedan
The Fairmont was the upper level luxury version of the Falcon, sharing the same body and mechanicals but with nicer trim. With the XE the Fairmont range was extended further by offering alongside the extra luxury Fairmont Ghia, the extra sporty Fairmont Ghia ESP.( European Sports Pack). This gained Scheel sports seats, lowered suspension, ‘Snowflake’ alloys, rear disc brakes, and a LSD. These were the last Falcons available with the Cleveland 351 V8, badged as a 5.8 for metric Australia, and joined with a 3 stage auto or a top-loader 4 speed.Two tone paint and blacked out chrome were also available and often optioned.
I remember when these were a dime a dozen here in Australia and New Zealand. I have a friend in Perth who has had an S-pack wagon like this one which has been his daily driver since new. It’s in rough condition now though. But they never die, these Australian Fords.
It looks like a Peugeot 505 wagon.
“Pretty primitive by today’s standards”…actually, by the standards of the day they were pretty primitive with all European cars having IFS and IRS and 4-speed auto’s, 2nd gen EMS etc, the native Ford’s and Holden’s were pedestrian at best and just plain neanderthal at worst! But they sold in their thousands, a lot seeing duty as taxi’s and racking up incredible amount of miles in the process.
Nice looking car. There’s just enough patina to let one know that it’s been used, but it doesn’t look all rusted out, like it’s been left outside without any use or anything.
I loved the XE and drove many back in the day. My day to day company car was a small sedan but when I had to do business trips up and down the Queensland coast, we’d lease one of these for a couple of months. Slap it in D, point it where you want to go and hit the juice and they go forever.